I recently purchased an Inspiron 1520 laptop from Dell. This page
details what works, what doesn't, and some configuration issues.
| Feature/Hardware | Status |
|---|---|
| X | Works using "intel" driver in Xorg 7.3.1 |
| Sound | Works with some minor issues, see below | PCMCIA | Works |
| Modem | Works using Conexant HSF softmodem driver |
| Network (ethernet) | Works |
| Network (wireless) | Identified out of the box, worked with both WPA and WPA2 networks once WPA supplicant was installed |
| DVD Writer | Works |
| Bluetooth | Works |
| Firewire | Not tested, but hardware detected |
| SD/MMC - MS/PRO | Tested OK with an SD card. |
| Application Keys | Works with some modifications, see below |
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c) 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c) 00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 02) 00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02) 00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02) 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f2) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02) 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02) 03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05) 03:01.1 Generic system peripheral [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22) 03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0843 (rev 12) 03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12) 03:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12) 0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
See my page on the zd8000 for initial resizing of the Windows XP partition so room could be made for Fedora.
I used the Fedora Core 8 installation DVD. Installation went smoothly. Quite honestly, this is the best GNU/Linux based system I've used since I started using Linux almost 10 years ago. With only a couple exceptions everything has just worked.
After installtion the system came up at 1024x768 resolution. All I had to do to get full 1280x800 resolution was to add it to the xorg.conf modeline. The xorg.conf file is located here.
S-Video worked with the included xorg.conf file. My plasma television came up automagically at its maximum 1024x768 resolution. All I had to do was restart X or resized the desktop using KDE's desktop configuration tool.
The integrated network device is a Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100MB device. The relevant module is the b44 Broadcom 44xx/47xx 10/100 PCI ethernet driver.
The integrated wireless card is the Intel 3945A/B/G, supported by the iwl3945 and mac80211 modules. It immediately came up after installation, but since I use WPA on my wireless network I had to install WPA Supplicant. Once I configured that I could connect to my network. For completeness, below is the /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf used for connectiong to a WPA-PSK configured network.
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
update_config=1
network={
ssid="home_net"
psk="supersecret"
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=TKIP
priority=3
}
The module for the sound card is snd-hda-intel. Like apparently so many using FC8 I also ran into trouble with sound not working correctly. Oddly enough, I had no sound issues with Fedora installed to a USB key. Anyway, I followed the tips on this page and this page, and finally sound worked. Personally I think what fixed it was running system-config-sound as either root or my normal user.
Supported by the hsfmodem package. After installation I was able to successfully query the modem using kppp.
I configured bluetooth using the guidelines located at Guru Labs and now the bluetooth device is identified and scans successfully.
Works well with synaptics driver included in the installation. See the xorg.conf files for configuration.
The touchpad has horizontal lines on its right side, thickened at each end. In KDE at least, if you tap on the top of the line it acts as a center mouse button click, even if you have 3 button emulation turned on. Tapping the lower end acts as a right click.
Still working on documenting this part, but all the fundamentals are below.
Contents of $HOME/.Xmodmap:
keycode 129 = keycode 130 = keycode 131 = keycode 132 = keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
kdcop can be used to browse available options for KDE related programs, or from the command line, just run the command dcop <application-name> with no options, and it will show available objects. You can then continue dcop with the associated objects to further progress through the available options.
$ dcop kmix qt MainApplication-Interface Mixer0 kmix kmix-mainwindow#1
$ dcop kmix Mixer0 void increaseVolume(int deviceidx) void decreaseVolume(int deviceidx) int volume(int deviceidx) int masterVolume() void setMute(int deviceidx,bool on) void setMasterMute(bool on) void toggleMute(int deviceidx) void toggleMasterMute() bool mute(int deviceidx) bool masterMute() ...
For example, you can check the status of the kmix mute by doing the following:
$ dcop kmix Mixer0 mute 0 false
Kcontrol -> Regional & Accessibility -> Input Actions
lm_sensors: only the coretemp module worked, but I get CPU and motherboard temps.
alias eth0 b44 alias scsi_hostadapter libata alias scsi_hostadapter1 ata_piix # enable hardware scanning options iwl3945 disable_hw_scan=0 alias wlan0 iwl3945 alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel options snd-card-0 index=0 options snd-hda-intel index=0[an error occurred while processing this directive]